The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has gathered signatures of about 570 organizations that support an effort to develop an updated claims data system with boosted interoperability, Fedscoop reported Wednesday.

Seema Verma, CMS administratorand a 2019 Wash100 recipient, said the Data at the Point of Care project would use an application programming interface to eliminate the need of a traditional portal for access.

The effort seeks to simplify access to the system that care providers use to share claims data information of beneficiaries.

Physicians use claims data as basis for where to locate and request for patient records.

The agency plans to open production-level access of the new system to a small group of care providers in the middle of November, the report noted.

Cyber Command has collaborated with the Department of Energy and the energy sector through the Grid X exercise to further build up their relationship in the event of a cyber attack on critical infrastructure and other assets, Fifth Domain reported Wednesday.

Maj. Gen. Stephen Hager, deputy commander of the Cyber National Mission Force, said Tuesday during a panel at the Association of the U.S. Army’s annual conference that Cybercom’s role in the Grid X exercise was to determine the type of assistance the Pentagon can extend in the event of a catastrophic power failure.

He said some of the actions DoD can take are providing response teams and performing defensive cyber operations-response actions.

“A lot of it is just engagement to see how they’re operating because we don’t have the authorities to do anything domestically. We have to have either a [Defense Support to Civil Authorities] request or somebody has to specifically ask us for support,” Hager noted.

Lynne Parker, assistant director for artificial intelligence at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, said the forthcoming memo seeks to promote public trust in AI and help agencies regulate the use of AI platforms, Nextgov reported Thursday.

“This is a memo directed to agencies that suggests regulatory and non-regulatory principles for how you oversee the use of AI in the private sector,” Parker said.

She said the memo aligns with an executive order signed in February, which aims to encourage public confidence and trust in AI technologies.

Parker stated that developers of the memo are adopting a risk-based approach as they address issues with regard to AI use. Once released, the draft guidance will be up for public feedback to inform the development of the final memo.

“After that, agencies will be directed to come up with their own plans for their own regulatory space, for how they want to ensure the appropriate regulatory and non-regulatory approaches for AI within the user application domains that they have oversight in,” Parker said.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is making progress in its program designed to reduce risks in genetic engineering technologies.

The agency said Tuesday its Safe Genes program’s first phase has resulted to the development of tools that would aid in studying the control of genome editors. The overall effort seeks to create technologies and approaches that allow for the manipulation, blocking, reversing and predictive use of genome augmentations.

DARPA also seeks to support military force security and public health via genetic technologies that result from the program, launched in 2017.

“During the first phase of Safe Genes, we focused on ground truth, technological foundations and early proofs of concept to determine which research pathways show the most promise,” said Renee Wegrzyn, Safe Genes program manager.

Other Safe Genes research teams are working on efforts to complete a layered, modular tool kit that supports the program’s goals, Wegrzyn noted.

Massachusetts General Hospital leads a Safe Genes team that delivered multiple program contributions such as genetic edit measurement tools and an open-source analysis software. The Verification of In Vivo Off-targets or VIVO design technology detects off-target mutations, and the CRISPResso2 software allows researchers to rapidly analyze genome editing sequences.

U.S. Strategic Command has selected California Polytechnic State University to support a global effort to track in-orbit objects via satellites. Cal Poly said Tuesday that it holds 20 years of helping Vandenberg Air Force Base pack and launch CubeSats for the tracking of in-orbit debris.

Government officials are concerned with the growing amount of space debris and inactive, floating spacecraft in Earth orbit.

“We share a lot of data back and forth with the 18th Space Control Squadron,” said Ryan Nugent, an aerospace engineer at Cal Poly.

He said the squadron would send information on collisions that may involve Poly Cal’s satellites. The university then uses this input to reduce chances of these collisions. Cal Poly students also transmit GPS-based information that Vandenberg operators save for tracking purposes.

Debris-tracking information supports launch safety, satellite maneuver planning, electromagnetic interference investigations, collision assessments and other space management activities.

Florida International University has received $3 million in funds from NASA through the Minority University Research and Education Project to study the development of materials that may endure in space. FIU said Tuesday that it has established the Center for Research and Education in 2D Optoelectronics, a facility that will build 2D material integration tools for space communication devices, small satellite systems and infrastructure.

CRE2DO has created superconductor materials that can support Mars spacecraft components and mitigate the need for battery power. The center has also developed wearable devices that will help astronauts communicate to a space station.

“The projects they’ll be working on will help other scientists and engineers as they work on the Artemis program, the NASA initiative to put the first woman and the next man on the moon,” said Daniela Radu, an associate professor of mechanical and materials engineering at FIU.

The center is slated to work with the Penn State 2D Crystal Consortium in line with the effort.